


End on a High Note

by tisfan



Series: Imagine Tony and Bucky 2018 [8]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Awkward Conversations, Bad Flirting, First Dates, M/M, Post-it Notes, affirmations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-18
Updated: 2018-04-18
Packaged: 2019-04-24 07:12:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14350506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tisfan/pseuds/tisfan
Summary: Someone's been leaving Bucky little notes...





	End on a High Note

**Author's Note:**

> Bucky is having a hard time adjusting at the tower and is feeling depressed. All of the sudden he stumbles upon a post it note that has a uplifting message on it. It is a leftover from when Tony used to leave notes for himself to find later. Tony is embarrassed at first, but once he sees how it makes Bucky’s day he starts doing it all the time. (Bonus if the notes get increasingly dirty ;) )

There were days when it was all Bucky could do not to smash the mirror. He hated looking at himself. Hated it. He didn’t fucking recognize himself.

Except for the times that he did; he’d see it, just out of the corner of one eye. Like the man he used to be was taunting him.

_You’ll never be that guy again._

The first solution hadn’t worked well; he’d done it in Romania. No mirror. He showered, sometimes shaved. Didn’t brush his teeth. It’s not like anyone was close to him that was going to complain about body odor. And he noticed that civilians tended to give him a wide berth if he looked like a murder hobo.

In the Compound, people… worried about him. Steve, first and foremost, but Wilson, too. Sometimes Nat would comment, if he was looking a little rough around the edges, and then there was all the endless therapy and bullshit and the guy who kept taking a prod at Bucky’s depression and his PTSD and all that shit like any of it meant anything, and even if it did, the fuck was anyone supposed to do about? He was fucked in the head crazy and it was the kind that didn’t get better.

The best he could do was avoid stuff that set him off, keep his head low and his voice down.

And not punch the goddamn mirrors.

So, second solution; when the day was really, really bad and he knew he needed to tend to his hygiene, he packed a bag and went down to the gym. After running flat out for several dozen miles on the specially built super soldier treadmill, or lifting the equivalent of a small car for hours on end, he could use the gym’s communal shower, and he would mostly be able to resist punching things that didn’t belong to him.

He came out of the shower, towel around his waist, and plodded wetly over to the mirror. The special mirrors -- everything in the damn compound was special, Stark made. In particular, these mirrors didn’t fog up in the heat of the shower. Not _particularly_ \-- anyone could get them off the internet, really -- marvelous, except that, it being Stark, they were _huge_ mirrors.

Clipped on the surface of the mirror, near where Bucky had left his toiletries kit, was a bright pink sticky note.

_The only thing a mirror shows you is your face._

There was a little heart drawn at the bottom of the note.

Bucky plucked it off the mirror and examined it closer. He knew that handwriting, neat and sharp and precise. The little heart was new, he didn’t think he’d ever seen Stark draw a heart.

Was he… flirting?

Or just noticing Bucky’s aversion to mirrors? He tucked the note into his bag, did some basic grooming, dressed, and left the gym, still pondering the note.

When he got back to his room, he tacked it to his corkboard, where he often left his grocery notes and appointment cards. Maybe, maybe he could use it to remind himself that what was in the mirror wasn’t important.

***

Two days later, Bucky found another note, this time on the microwave.

_Time is an illusion, lunchtime, doubly so. Eat something. Love yourself._

As it was somewhat past three in the morning and Bucky had been having a really bad day -- hadn’t left his bed, much less his apartment, all day -- it was, undoubtedly good advice. His supersoldier appetite was what had driven him forth anyway. There was only so long he could ignore it before he started worrying that his stomach would just crawl right out of his mouth and go hunting on its own.

The loving himself, well, that was harder. Certainly not doable over a couple of sandwiches and a few slices of cantaloupe and a dish of pudding.

But he could eat.

Bucky tucked the note in his pocket on his way out of the kitchen again. Hit the elevator and almost ran Tony down.

“Oh, hey freezer burn,” Tony said. “I was just going to hit up a late night snack.” He eyed the tower of plates that Bucky was in the process of taking upstairs. “Want to sit with me while we eat? I find three in the morning to be very depressing to eat alone, but seems like I’m doing it all the time anyway. Not many other people on my crazy schedule.”

Well, Bucky knew a little about the schedule of crazy, didn’t he?

“Sure,” he decided, and followed Tony back out. He brushed his fingers down the front of the microwave, then checked inside. “Huh, okay.” He went to the pantry and pulled out a few packets of instant oatmeal, the kind with dried fruit in it.

Bucky unstacked his haul and started in on the sandwich, watching Tony out of the corner of his eye. “Can’t sleep,” he said around a mouthful of ham and rye.

“Sometimes,” Tony admitted. “Gets bad, I just fall in an engineering hole for a while. Works out, we need the upgrades.”

“You know th’ story about puttin’ your own gas mask on first, right?”

“Don’t lecture me, World War Two-step,” Tony said. “I been scowled at by the best, your puppy eyes have no chance against me. I am immune to the Captain America is Disappointed in You face.”

“I was more thinkin’ ‘long the lines of tyin’ you to the bed,” Bucky said, and then clapped a hand over his mouth because that was not what he’d meant to say at all, and he should probably check in with his brain before being allowed out in public.

Tony, on the other hand, cackled gleefully. “Give me a nice, hard body in the bed with me, and I’ll stay tied anywhere you want me.”

Surely Tony did not mean that.

Surely.

***

The little piece of orange paper was stuck to DUM-E’s claw and the ‘bot was making little squeegy noises, opening and closing his claw and trying to scrape it off on the wall.

“Here, hang on, don’t hurt yourself, I got this,” Bucky said, snatching at the piece of paper. DUM-E rolled around in a frantic little circle, then smashed his claw into Bucky’s chest, leaving the sticky note there. “Did Tony tell you to give this to me?”

They were supposed to do maintenance but Tony was nowhere to be seen. Tony liked to pick at the arm on a regular basis, tweak and upgrade and run diagnostics. After the first few times, when Bucky was so nervous he couldn’t maintain any sort of conversation for fear that he was going to throw up or start screaming, and Tony treated the arm as an extension of Bucky, rather than the other way around, it gradually became one of Bucky’s safe places. He looked forward to maintenance; twenty minutes or so once a week where he could put himself in someone else’s hands, someone he _trusted_ , and just relax.

He flipped the note over.

 _1 - arm maintenance_  
2 - don’t make it weird  
3 - jerk off  later

Bucky blinked a few times.

“Oh, hey, snowflake, are you-- woah, woah, woah, give me that, do not read that!” Tony exclaimed, coming out of the lab’s washroom. “That was trash, DUM-E! Bad robot. Gonna donate you to a community college, I swear.” He scurried across the room and snatched at the note, fingers still wet.

It was not hard to keep the note away from Tony; in fact, it was never more obvious that Tony was an only child, because grabbing at something being held by someone lots taller never worked, and Bucky just stretched, reaching up until his hand was way out of Tony’s grasp.

After jumping a few times -- and Bucky had to dodge and switch hands a few times, because Tony was both stronger and quicker than he looked -- Tony finally stopped, crossed his arms over his chest and tried to look stern. “That’s trash,” he repeated. “Give it to me.”

“I already read it,” Bucky told him. He sighed and handed over the sticky note. “Is… I ain’t makin’ you uncomfortable am I? I mean, I reckon I locked it down, but I ain’t… I’m sorry.”

“Sorry for what?” Tony asked. His neck was turning red, but he lifted his chin as if daring the blush to go any further. “Sorry for being gorgeous and smart and funny? Because really, I don’t see that you’ve done anything wrong here.”

“I have, if you’re tellin’ me not to _make it weird_.” Bucky sighed. He’d thought Tony hadn’t noticed his stupid crush.

“Those are not notes for you,” Tony snapped. “They’re for me.”

“Huh?” Bucky looked at the note again. “But I’ve got a whole bunch of ‘em. I thought… I thought you were leaving them for me.”

“Oh, is that where they’re all disappearing to?” Tony mused. “I thought the cleaners were getting ambitious. Wait, wait, slow down, wait a minute, do you… you think this note is for you? _For what_?”

Bucky cuffed the back of his neck and stared at the floor. “Thought I was makin’ things weird for you, while you were doin’ maintenance,” he admitted. “Starin’ an’... damn it.”

“You think these are instructions for you? Like, I’m just going to tell you to go jerk off after our session?”

Bucky wet his lips. “Was… uh… is that your to-do list?” His brain presented him with the image of Tony, clinging with one hand to the bathroom sink, sweaty and hair sticking to his face, dick in hand… Bucky made a soft noise in the back of his throat.

“Jesus Christ, can we like _never_ have this conversation again?”

Bucky grabbed at Tony’s arm before he got out of range. “No, come on, hang… will you… damn it, Tony, I’m tryin’ to tell you it ain’t weird.”

Tony looked down at his snagged sleeve, then up at Bucky, his face sour. “You’re telling me this is perfectly normal, then?”

“I’m tellin’ you that… it don’t gotta be this way,” Bucky protested. “It’s not weird, if we both think we’re-- you’re not alone in this crush, is what I’m tryin’ to say.” God, someone shoot him now for being eighty times awkward. He blushed harder. “Let’s… uh, we can follow th’ list. Do maintenance. Don’t make it weird.”

“And jerk off later?” Tony’s eyebrow went up.

“Well, I was thinkin’ maybe go get an ice cream or somethin’ but if you want to move right along to the action, I ain’t gonna say no.”

“Ice cream,” Tony mused. “Ice cream sounds… nice.”

 


End file.
